saxifragace^e. 83 



mucronate at the apex. Calyx-segments triangular, acute. Stem 

 sub-glabrous ; pedicels and calyces sparingly clotbed with very short 

 gland-tipped hairs, margins of the leaves usually with elongate 

 articulate hairs. 



Var. a, platyjwtala. 



Plate DLXI. 

 S. platypetala, Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 2276, and S. elongella, Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 2277. 



Leaves of the barren shoots at the time of flowering 3-cleft, 

 very rarely with axillary buds, and terminating in an imperfect 

 rosette. 



Var. 3, gcmmifera. 



Plate DLXII. 

 S. hypnoides, Gr. & Godr. Fl. de Fr. Vol. I. p. 653. 



Leaves of the barren shoots at the time of flowering mostly 

 undivided, the greater number of them with buds in their axils 

 and the shoot terminated by a similar but larger bud; buds 

 spindle-shaped, consisting of undivided aristate leaves, with scarious 

 margins, closely packed over each other. 



On mountains and damp banks in hilly districts. Common, 

 and generally distributed in all the mountainous districts of the 

 country. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 



Barren shoots trailing, 2 to 6 inches long. Leaves distant when 

 lobed, with the lobes tapering nearly from the base when simple, the 

 leaf enlarging a little beyond the middle, where the division of the 

 lobes would be if the leaves were divided, and then diminishing to 

 the acute apex. Flowering-stems 2 to 7 inches high, with a few 

 3-cleft leaves towards the base, and some entire ones near the apex. 

 Flowers \ inch or more across, white. 



This plant comes very near S. hirta, but the barren shoots are 

 more slender, more procumbent, with the leaves narrower below the 

 point where the lobes commence ; the lobes less parallel-sided and 

 more acute, the flowering-stem more slender and its leaves narrower, 

 the sepals narrower and more acute, the whole plant with fewer 

 gland-tipped hairs. 



The extreme states of varieties a and are strikingly different, 

 but the transition from the one to the other is so gradual, that it 

 appears to be impossible to draw any defining line between them . 



